Previous: Indigenous Village, Skyline Photographs During one full day in Panama City you can: Photography Tips for Panama City I’d write something like: There would be no afternoon siesta today. Tragic, I know. Exploring Old Panama I am a sucker for ruins. Old churches. Crumbling walls. Abandoned fortresses. If it looks like it might collapse…
Previous: Bird-Watching, Ancon Hill Panorama Is an Emberá Village Tour Worth It? If you’re visiting Panama City and want to experience Panama’s Indigenous culture, an Emberá village tour is one of the best day trips available. After a canoe ride through Chagres National Park, you’ll learn about traditional medicine, basket weaving, rainforest life, and enjoy…
Previous: Spanish Fortresses/ Highest Rooftop Bar Central America What You’ll See at Soberanía National Park Soberanía National Park is one of the best places for birdwatching in Panama. Just 30–40 minutes from Panama City, visitors can see sloths, monkeys, crocodiles, toucans, motmots, trogons, and hundreds of tropical bird species before returning to the city for…
Five-Minute Watercolor Flowers That Actually Look Good I won’t lie. I hate painting flowers. Every semester, someone requests a floral painting demonstration in one of my classes. And every semester, I hesitate because: Yes, I realize I already mentioned that. It’s worth mentioning twice. The worst—and I mean absolute worst—demonstration I have ever done was…
One of the greatest challenges in watercolor is creating the illusion of depth. After all, we’re working on a completely flat piece of paper. Somehow we have to convince the viewer that one tree is ten feet away, another is fifty feet away, and sunlight is streaming through an entire forest beyond. That sounds intimidating,…
UNC Old Well Watercolor Tutorial: Combining Multiple Watercolor Techniques What Watercolor Techniques Were Used? The University of North Carolina’s Old Well is one of the most recognizable landmarks in North Carolina. If you’ve ever visited Chapel Hill, you’ve probably seen it—or at least fought your way through a crowd of students taking graduation photos around…
How to Paint Atmospheric Fog in Watercolor Best Subjects for This Technique Fog effects work especially well for: Watercolor is traditionally known as a transparent medium. Most instructors teach students to preserve the white of the paper and build color through transparent layers. Even though white watercolor paints exist, the brightest highlights are usually created…
Colorful grays are created by mixing complementary colors rather than relying on premixed gray paints. These mixtures create more luminous shadows, stronger color harmony, and paintings that feel more alive. Purchase original painting or fine art prints HERE Why Your Gray Paintings Look Dull (And How to Fix Them) One of the most common mistakes…
How to Paint Snow Without White Paint One of my favorite demonstrations for beginning watercolor students is a snowy landscape. Why snow? Because the watercolor paper is the snow. Half the painting is already finished before you even pick up a brush. Seriously. The biggest challenge for most beginners is learning that watercolor often works…
For this painting of Neuschwanstein Castle in Bavaria, Germany, I had a crazy idea. I took the original photograph and made three copies. Then I stretched two of them vertically on the Y-axis and sliced the images apart before reassembling them into a single composition. I didn’t want the sections to line up perfectly. In…
